I was recently asked a question, "What purpose is the pain serving you?" My response flowed out of my finger tips effortlessly. Writing has always been a passion and a strength academically; despite my inability to spell correctly or have the expected expanded vocabulary one would anticipate. I wanted to share my response with all that read my blog here, because it is important to take these deep dives into oneself. I know it is even a greater value to have someone else relate or grow from the events I have already lived. You see our strives, our hardships, our pain can be used to help others going through theirs. While I sheltered my story for years like a dark secret that would ultimately terrify anyone that found out about it, I realized in gaining my health the only one terrified of my story was me. At this point in my life I placed a huge value in others opinions of me. I was scared that I would be considered less than or treated much like the many people that did know my story. They were not so kind and gentle with me. I understand now that they were never kind and gentle with themselves; so to expect them to offer me an offering they could not even give themselves was a far reach. My hope is that by the end of this you have a visual as to why pain serves us all with purpose.
I will now share my response to the question, "What purpose is the pain serving you?" My response, "Well I will share what it did for me all those years I held onto it. Pain was a security blanket purposely placed to save me from the person I had grown to fear the most, myself. I had lost trust in my ability to make decisions, love, pick partners, pick friends, pick a simple outfit from the store, etc. I wore all of my extra fat around me as a barrier to my true emotions and the outside world. If I just hid myself enough, no one would know that I was scared of myself. Scared I would feed that intense sexual energy I had always known and cheat on my husband that I truly valued. Thanks to that fat suit, I fortunately have stayed faithful for fourteen years. The purpose was a numbing technique until I was strong enough to face the traumas of my life's story. Trauma I was running from, hiding from, and unknowingly becoming. As much as I tried to escape the emotions, they were literally part of me. Slowly I stared to face the pain that held the fat suit together. Who would have guessed the person under all that pain was not scary at all! I was loving, kind, peaceful, protective of life, compassionate, healing, enough, safe, balanced, and joyous. Pain did serve me the time I needed to see past it to the person that lived underneath it all. I acknowledge my pain, celebrate my pain, thank my pain for giving me the time I needed to find myself. When I was ready to release the pain, it felt vulnerable and uncomfortable; like I was finally saying goodbye to an old friend. It is always hard to let go of what we become accustom to. In this moment I will thank my pain once again for saving me in the moments I was not strong enough to face."
I am positively aware that most people do not welcome nor appreciate the weighted feelings of being hurt. I am aware pain in its many forms is sometimes down right unfathomable. Pushing pain away from us or wanting it to be resolved quickly is the universal solution. However, I would argue pain serves us in many ways we do not give pain credit for. To physically feel pain such as in the event of a burn, tells us to remove our skin from the heat. This serves us so we do not get a serious injury. Emotional pain without a doubt has been part of my toughest battles in life. Emotional pain also serves a purpose. It lets us know to be cautious and to keep good friends close. Emotional pain revels truths maybe even about ourselves. Just as emotional pain can revel truths on the flip side, it also revels untruths. The betrayals we all seem to come in contact with throughout a life well lived. These emotional pains help guide us to chose better friends, better partners, and to let go of toxic family members. They can also be used to take a deep dive into the mistakes we have personally made in our own relationship with ourselves. Our first instinct as human beings is to remove the pain and console the wounded. I am not different in this way at all. I want to help "fix" the issues or Band-Aid the pain. As a mother of three, some good lessons were learned from my children learning through their own pains. As much as I wanted to rush in to fix that Boo-Boo, I somehow knew better. Tough love I guess some call it, but is it really tough to allow growth?
I will share what a life without pain would look like for me if I can do so since I have never lived my life without some sort of pain experienced. I will start with my physical pains. The pains so physically demanding they often left me incapacitated. The sharp shooters that would stab me in my abdomen or the extremely painful cramping leaving my toes stuck straight up with no way to relieve it. The many hard hits, rips, tears, pulls, cuts, bruises, burns, etc. The eye migraines leaving my head feeling like it was the only part of me. I could never leave out my knee injury that turned into an arthritis so debilitating I could barely walk. These physical pains taught me to pay attention to my body. The unknown stabbing pains was my body trying to communicate with me when I completely turned a deaf ear to them. They would eventually go away and I would pass them off as a fluke incident. They taught me to listen when my body is screaming. Their is always a reason your body is having pain. Pain is one of the most valuable ways the body can tell you, "Pay attention to me." We often times separate the physical with the mental, but I think it is all connected.
My deep intuition came from the pain my father and mother instilled on me as early as infancy. This deep intuition came from a deeper form of emotional trauma, but it has been a gift my entire life. I have instinctively helped the random suicidal at the grocery store check out line. Was I completely aware she was in the depths of her despair, absolutely not! The point is I gravitated to her energy to be kind, because I knew she needed it. This of course turned into a very long conversation with many tears, but she told me I saved her life that day. Many many stories like this exist in my lifetime story. The pain of me realizing my first real boyfriend was an opportunist and was never capable of truly loving me. This lesson taught me to be guarded to not be so trusting. I knew after that relationship dissolved I didn't really know myself that well. I became closer to nature, gravitated to solitude, and understood I needed better boundaries. The pain of my first assault was traumatic and foreign. I had a choice to scream out, but chose to protect the very small children holding their individual colored tie to the rope they all held in a starlight line back to class. This lesson was a tough one with so much shame and guilt, because I did have an opportunity to get away at the expense of approximately twenty small preschoolers. I realized here I had a chose even though, it did not seem like a fair trade. I made a sacrifice that was most definitely never made for myself. I learned my naivety had dangers to it and that their were consequences when a predator was on the other end of my innocence. I also did recognize I always had a choice to do the right thing even if it effected me in a poor way. That day I chose the children and I would do it that exact same way every time. Twenty innocent souls were saved from a possible trauma story of their own. Tough choices to make in life that do not always benefit us immediately. Perhaps my greatest take away from this pain was the fact that I was different and unlike my parents. I was protective of the innocence I never got to thoroughly enjoy as a child. I was empathetic and kind. I knew more than myself mattered in this pain and I was only seventeen years old. The pain of losing a friend, or a child, a grandparent, or a pet., loss was loss. I would end up losing a lot over my life thus far and that pain was fragile like no other I had known before. I could never touch them, speak with them, hold them, love them again. They went to an unknown existence I ultimately did not understand. I so desperately wanted more life, just more living. I learned here that life was a mystery to me and death was even more of a mystery. I saw life pass so quickly I did not even have time to see it leave; as well as, I witnessed life hold on as tight as a vice to metal seeming to never let go of it. This lesson allowed me to cherish life, relationships, and also to allow to let them go. I found a peace in the thought of recycling life giving back to the earth once we left it. I started valuing my life more and the life around me. I got less upset over the bad drivers or the angry that served everyone with aggression. A softness came over me so gently where a very hard exterior shell use to reside. I was transforming with every pain. I was being molded like clay in between your toes after a rainy day's saturated ground. The pain I have endured was part of me and is still part of me. It was part of my hurt, my anger, my rage, my softness, my love, my gentleness, my peace. Without the pains in life, would I ever have experienced the extremes of joy and happiness? I think of the word boring and/or the color gray when I think of a life without pain. I think of the word definition or purpose when I think of a life with pain. For to experience life is to live life. Living is the point of having a life so embrace and welcome the pains life will bring you. Do these pains hurt like hell? Hell yes they do! Learn from them, grow from them, and be molded into the best art life has to form you into.
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